Showing posts with label cameos galore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cameos galore. Show all posts
Monday, June 14, 2010
"Sexx Laws" -- a music video retrospective
Beck! Stoner rock, folk rock and funk rock all rolled into one talented SoCal musician. Funk is the interesting (often skipped-over) part of his legendary career... many name-check Odelay, but I absolutely love everything about Midnite Vultures. It's mega funky, and packed with sweet lyrics. This opening track sets the stage for the rest of the album, and the video provides additional imagery.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Best music videos of the decade (15 - 11)
#15
"Lose Control" (2005)
Missy Elliott with Ciara and Fatman ScoopDirector: Dave Meyers
We start off with Missy's 2005 contribution to the video pantheon. If anything defines a good R&B video, it's dance moves, weird cameos and other sillyness. "Lose Control" is just perfect for a high school pep squad... kinda like Gwen Stefani tracks but with a little less cheerleading and a fat guy... and Tommy Lee.
#14
"Cinnamon Girl" (2004)
Prince Director: Phil Harder
Mix up some September 11th airport paranoia with crayon-y special effects, and you've got Prince's most political track ever. Yes, that is the Whale Rider girl; and no, I don't know what the "5:5" means on Prince's forehead. Undoubtedly the best Prince video in the last 10 years. But, it barely beat out "Black Sweat"...
#13
"Across the Night" (2003)
Silverchair Directors: Sean Gilligan and Sarah-Jane Woulahan
Silverchair quietly made some spectacular vids in the last decade. At least 3 are in the Top 50 for me, and "Across the Night" is their best. In a time where the band was on an indefinite touring hiatus and the future was dim, this managed to keep the band alive through airwaves. I didn't even realize it was in grayscale until a second viewing. It took me about 20 views to realize that was Guy Pearce, too.
Friday, September 11, 2009
"Victory" -- a music video retrospective
I think what gives Puff Daddy's credibility guise away is his constant need for a new stage name. Endlessly searching for "the cool", he never realizes that the first nickname was what he should have stuck with all along (Sean "Puffy" Combs). What's more, many people don't grasp that most of Diddy's best songs are actually Notorious BIG hits featuring him (and probably also featuring Mase). So, his after-Biggie life has been all about emerging as a separate entity.
Have you seen Bad Boys II? Diddy was trying to sell "Shake Ya Tailfeather" so hard that, as "Executive Music Producer", he played it every possible time he could in the flick. My friends and I based a drinking game on this sobering display of triteness.
OK, to the music video:
With lyrics like "get your math on", "hot for a long time/burning like a candle"; and bragging about going platinum, you know that "Victory" is pop-rap. It's like the Cristal that Puffy is so fond of--bubbly, expensive and not really filling.
It's a basic "Most Dangerous Game"/Running Man take-off. Lots of helicopters, fireballs, rain machines, searchlights, rollerblading cops and supermodels and are employed. It somewhat resembles the directing style of David Fincher. Let's look at a few video stills:
Wait a minute... Year 3002 A.D., and he has a pager? His top speed 320 km PER SECOND??? That's roughly 715 mph... Obviously, the producers were not that worried about the details and the metric system. If they invested more in the little things, and less on Danny DeVito and Dennis Hopper, who knows.
The late Notorious BIG fills in the creative gaps, dominating PD's rhymes posthumously (for the nth time). Even Busta Rhymes makes Puffy sound lazy. When the NWO President (Dennis Hopper) says "delete" (maybe that's how they say it in the year 3002?), I think that just sums up the quality of the video's script.
The lamest part of the video is the apparent suicide of "Contestant #5". The animation of him jumping off the building is just laughable. It reminds me of the Joker's death in Tim Burton's Batman... the same CGI used 10 years later. Why not spend another $30k on some better effects; make it an even 3 million dollar budget?
Video facts
Length: 7:50
Director: Anonymous (Marcus Nispel)
Date: March, 1998
Est. Cost: $2.7 million
http://www.mtvmusic.com/puff_daddy/videos/9718/victory.jhtml
When this video debuted, there was no (living) black artist as high profile as Puff Daddy. With Biggie's death, he catapulted into the mainstream, with the help of MTV. The video for "Victory" is Puff Daddy's parallel of "Estranged" by Guns N' Roses: it marks the pinnacle of overindulgence and the waning of popularity. Maybe Diddy's next album will be analogous to Chinese Democracy. "Estranged" is a classic... is "Victory"?
Links
* http://www.mvdbase.com/video.php?id=22637
To submit ideas for Retrospective articles, or to just chat about the obscure and esoteric, contact me here.
[All images are © their respective owners.]
Have you seen Bad Boys II? Diddy was trying to sell "Shake Ya Tailfeather" so hard that, as "Executive Music Producer", he played it every possible time he could in the flick. My friends and I based a drinking game on this sobering display of triteness.
OK, to the music video:
With lyrics like "get your math on", "hot for a long time/burning like a candle"; and bragging about going platinum, you know that "Victory" is pop-rap. It's like the Cristal that Puffy is so fond of--bubbly, expensive and not really filling.
It's a basic "Most Dangerous Game"/Running Man take-off. Lots of helicopters, fireballs, rain machines, searchlights, rollerblading cops and supermodels and are employed. It somewhat resembles the directing style of David Fincher. Let's look at a few video stills:
Wait a minute... Year 3002 A.D., and he has a pager? His top speed 320 km PER SECOND??? That's roughly 715 mph... Obviously, the producers were not that worried about the details and the metric system. If they invested more in the little things, and less on Danny DeVito and Dennis Hopper, who knows.
The late Notorious BIG fills in the creative gaps, dominating PD's rhymes posthumously (for the nth time). Even Busta Rhymes makes Puffy sound lazy. When the NWO President (Dennis Hopper) says "delete" (maybe that's how they say it in the year 3002?), I think that just sums up the quality of the video's script.
The lamest part of the video is the apparent suicide of "Contestant #5". The animation of him jumping off the building is just laughable. It reminds me of the Joker's death in Tim Burton's Batman... the same CGI used 10 years later. Why not spend another $30k on some better effects; make it an even 3 million dollar budget?
Video facts
Length: 7:50
Director: Anonymous (Marcus Nispel)
Date: March, 1998
Est. Cost: $2.7 million
http://www.mtvmusic.com/puff_daddy/videos/9718/victory.jhtml
When this video debuted, there was no (living) black artist as high profile as Puff Daddy. With Biggie's death, he catapulted into the mainstream, with the help of MTV. The video for "Victory" is Puff Daddy's parallel of "Estranged" by Guns N' Roses: it marks the pinnacle of overindulgence and the waning of popularity. Maybe Diddy's next album will be analogous to Chinese Democracy. "Estranged" is a classic... is "Victory"?
Links
* http://www.mvdbase.com/video.php?id=22637
To submit ideas for Retrospective articles, or to just chat about the obscure and esoteric, contact me here.
[All images are © their respective owners.]
Monday, April 27, 2009
"Black or White" (Complete Panther Version) -- a music video retrospective
For my very first retrospective on a music video from yesteryear, I wanted to do something special. Maybe show a normal person something old with a twist--something rare and glorious. Maybe something that would make you say "holy wow". I searched and searched, and I think I have it. I wanted to start on the right foot. I hope it doesn't set a high bar for the rest. Michael Jackson.
John Landis, the director of arguably the best music video of the 80's ("Thriller"), was tasked again with showing Michael Jackson to the masses in 1991. He knew the pressure was on and he had to go all out. Not only was this video to simultaneously premiere on (America's) MTV and BET, but even FOX was in on the prime time action. (You may remember also seeing "Remember the Time" on CBS in primetime the next year). If you were old enough to remember, you know that MJ was an untouchable star in the late eighties and early nineties.
As for cameos, there are many. Most people could tell you that Macaulay Culkin is the featured actor, but Cheers' own George Wendt, along with Homer and Bart Simpson, Tess Harper, Peggy Lipton and even a young Tyra Banks are part of the complete package. What a motley crew! But actors are one thing--what about content?
There's a good chance you've seen the Culkin intro and the meat of the edited video at some point in your life. Basically, there are 3 parts to the edit: a fed up kid blasting his father through the roof with a loud guitar, Michael cavorting around with lots of ethnic groups/nationalities, and a morphing scene that "blends" a bunch of people's faces into one another. The main theme is racial equality and stuff. There is also a little urban rap segment, but that is really not a big deal. What is the big deal is the last segment of the long unedited version.
The camera cuts the morphing scene, and a melanistic jaguar (black panther) leads us to a vacant street in the night. The jaguar then morphs into a cooler-than-Christ spotlit Michael. What then ensues is unbelievable. It can be best described as: a choreographed solo dance becoming an orgy of violence. I am not kidding, you just have to see the whole thing play out. There is a lot of crotch touching.
Michael begins slamdancing/tapdancing and then goes apeshit on a car and breaks the glass of a nearby store/hotel. Pantherrrrr raaaaage! After a decent amount of fan outrage (for Jackson standards), graffiti was superimposed on an altered version of the video. The windows now read "No More Wetbacks" and "Hitler Lives" (to go with the equality theme, you know). You may be able to hunt down the non-graffiti version, but it is super rare.
I think the seminal rage moment is when Michael reaches into the glass-smashed car, grabs the steering wheel and throws it at a window with the graffito "KKK Rules". The two best parts about this are: the groan when Mike throws the wheel, and the fact that some inner city artist spray-painted anything about the Ku Klux Klan. And that alone is worth the price of admission.
Try to watch it and think only of the video, song, and not the press surrounding the artist (you know, he's turning 51 this year, and his farewell concerts are this summer).
Video facts
Length: 11:15
Director: John Landis
Date: November 1991
Est. Cost: $1.2 million (ref)
Links:
* http://www.steveprutz.com/downloads.html
* http://www.mtvmusic.com/jackson_michael/videos/18164/black_or_white_long_version_.jhtml
* http://www.mvdbase.com/video.php?id=14151
* http://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/16/arts/review-rock-new-video-opens-the-jackson-blitz.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
* http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,316363,00.html
* http://community.michaeljackson.com/us/videos
I do not wish to bash Michael Jackson in any way here, now or ever. He is a visionary to say the least. I envy his legendary dance skills. But, why did he need a solo dance scene at the end of an already overblown video? That is all I have to say on the subject of "Black or White". I guarantee MJ will appear a few more times before I leave the music videos to another lost soul.
Go buy the HIStory - The Video Greatest Hits DVD and enjoy this gem forever!!!
To submit ideas for Retrospective articles, or to just chat about the obscure and esoteric, contact me here.
John Landis, the director of arguably the best music video of the 80's ("Thriller"), was tasked again with showing Michael Jackson to the masses in 1991. He knew the pressure was on and he had to go all out. Not only was this video to simultaneously premiere on (America's) MTV and BET, but even FOX was in on the prime time action. (You may remember also seeing "Remember the Time" on CBS in primetime the next year). If you were old enough to remember, you know that MJ was an untouchable star in the late eighties and early nineties.
As for cameos, there are many. Most people could tell you that Macaulay Culkin is the featured actor, but Cheers' own George Wendt, along with Homer and Bart Simpson, Tess Harper, Peggy Lipton and even a young Tyra Banks are part of the complete package. What a motley crew! But actors are one thing--what about content?
There's a good chance you've seen the Culkin intro and the meat of the edited video at some point in your life. Basically, there are 3 parts to the edit: a fed up kid blasting his father through the roof with a loud guitar, Michael cavorting around with lots of ethnic groups/nationalities, and a morphing scene that "blends" a bunch of people's faces into one another. The main theme is racial equality and stuff. There is also a little urban rap segment, but that is really not a big deal. What is the big deal is the last segment of the long unedited version.
The camera cuts the morphing scene, and a melanistic jaguar (black panther) leads us to a vacant street in the night. The jaguar then morphs into a cooler-than-Christ spotlit Michael. What then ensues is unbelievable. It can be best described as: a choreographed solo dance becoming an orgy of violence. I am not kidding, you just have to see the whole thing play out. There is a lot of crotch touching.
Michael begins slamdancing/tapdancing and then goes apeshit on a car and breaks the glass of a nearby store/hotel. Pantherrrrr raaaaage! After a decent amount of fan outrage (for Jackson standards), graffiti was superimposed on an altered version of the video. The windows now read "No More Wetbacks" and "Hitler Lives" (to go with the equality theme, you know). You may be able to hunt down the non-graffiti version, but it is super rare.
I think the seminal rage moment is when Michael reaches into the glass-smashed car, grabs the steering wheel and throws it at a window with the graffito "KKK Rules". The two best parts about this are: the groan when Mike throws the wheel, and the fact that some inner city artist spray-painted anything about the Ku Klux Klan. And that alone is worth the price of admission.
Try to watch it and think only of the video, song, and not the press surrounding the artist (you know, he's turning 51 this year, and his farewell concerts are this summer).
Video facts
Length: 11:15
Director: John Landis
Date: November 1991
Est. Cost: $1.2 million (ref)
Links:
* http://www.steveprutz.com/downloads.html
* http://www.mtvmusic.com/jackson_michael/videos/18164/black_or_white_long_version_.jhtml
* http://www.mvdbase.com/video.php?id=14151
* http://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/16/arts/review-rock-new-video-opens-the-jackson-blitz.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
* http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,316363,00.html
* http://community.michaeljackson.com/us/videos
I do not wish to bash Michael Jackson in any way here, now or ever. He is a visionary to say the least. I envy his legendary dance skills. But, why did he need a solo dance scene at the end of an already overblown video? That is all I have to say on the subject of "Black or White". I guarantee MJ will appear a few more times before I leave the music videos to another lost soul.
Go buy the HIStory - The Video Greatest Hits DVD and enjoy this gem forever!!!
To submit ideas for Retrospective articles, or to just chat about the obscure and esoteric, contact me here.
>> Check the music video & artist name labels for more posts on music video masterpieces![All images are © their respective owners.]
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